How does alcohol influence the brain? • Hacker News Board

Re: How does alcohol influence the brain?

#31

Post by neurosphere » Sun, Jan 10, 2016, 10:58 PM UTC

fallingfrog wrote: post #27

And the part about the rats hitting the dopamine lever is wrong too. If the rats were in a rich environment with other rats to interact with they would overwhelmingly prefer straight water to water with cocaine. It was only rats in an empty box with literally nothing else to do that would get addicted- in other words rats which were already in significant psychological pain. I need to find the reference for that..

The idea of whether rats with exciting lives would indeed be less likely to become addicted to cocaine / morphine is quite controversial, and there have been some failures to replicate that original study (references here: 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9148292?dopt=Abstract and 2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2616610?dopt=Abstract). I think the argument is that social isolation can and probably does make animals and humans more prone to drug addiction, but it's definitely not the only factor, and both animals and humans with good lives can still become hooked.

Re: How does alcohol influence the brain?

#32

Post by neurosphere » Sun, Jan 10, 2016, 10:59 PM UTC

fallingfrog wrote: post #17

I feel like this article is misleading in some of the details, for example some of the neurons that are quieted are inhibitory neurons, so the net effect is to make other neurons more activated.

The notion that some of the neurons silenced by alcohol are inhibitory neurons is actually the explanation that researchers have proposed for why stimulating glycine receptors produces an increase in dopamine release. The idea which is shown in a diagram in the article is that silencing GABA-releasing interneurons (which are inhibitory) with glycine consequently disinhibits dopaminergic neurons.

Re: How does alcohol influence the brain?

#33

Post by TOMDM » Sun, Jan 10, 2016, 11:32 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #10

xchaotic wrote: post #7

The article is interesting on a chemical level and explains the biochemical reactions really well. What I am really interested in is a higher level study on overall social and cognitive results of moderate drinking. I bet you 'll find plenty of anecdotal opinions with claims that small amounts of alcohol help with coding and also social awkwardness

I've told that before, but I'll say it once more. Some people are badly calibrated. Two drinks don't make us drunk, they make us normal. I'm not incapacitated, not foolish, not violent, just in tune with the others. Alcohol is the bit of jitter that make the system not corner itself.

I don't mean to imply anything about you in particular, but I think encouraging self medication through recreational drugs may form harmful opinions towards drugs as far as struggles with addiction goes.

What makes you normal may be someone else's vice.

Re: How does alcohol influence the brain?

#34

Post by jsprogrammer » Mon, Jan 11, 2016, 12:10 AM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #30

jsprogrammer wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The HN title now differs from the article's actual title. How is discussion of an article's text 'off-topic', particularly when the discussion is entirely cogent and on point? If an article uses a word in the title, it should also occur in the text. Anyway, if you're concerned about effective downmodding, you should probably head over to https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=brazzledazzle where their last comment w…

The request was there because this [1] response was entirely predictable. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10877103 It's great to see lutusp back. It's a shame he comments on psychology articles. His comments on any other subject are interesting, fascinating, useful.

What, exactly, do you see wrong with that response?

Re: How does alcohol influence the brain?

#35

Post by kafkaesq » Mon, Jan 11, 2016, 12:45 AM UTC

xchaotic wrote: post #7

The article is interesting on a chemical level and explains the biochemical reactions really well. What I am really interested in is a higher level study on overall social and cognitive results of moderate drinking. I bet you 'll find plenty of anecdotal opinions with claims that small amounts of alcohol help with coding and also social awkwardness

Alcohol certainly can help with coding, but only at the Ballmer Peak:

https://xkcd.com/323/

Re: How does alcohol influence the brain?

#36

Post by tcj_phx » Mon, Jan 11, 2016, 5:19 AM UTC

fallingfrog wrote: post #25

If you start looking at their references the arguments start to fall apart- for example, that photo of reduced glucose uptake was not associated with reduced cognitive performance and the authors of the paper suggested that perhaps an alternative energy source to glucose was being utilized.

Alcohol is an energy-rich molecule... I think one of its metabolites is preferentially burned by the body. There was a study published about 2 years ago that found heavy drinkers' brains burn lots of acetate.